
Computer Simulation appears to be necessary to a well understanding of Complex Systems. Human societies, economics and organizations could be considered as complex systems in which the behavior of the system as a whole highly depends on the interaction between individual parts.  Studying these systems by simulation needs to involve scientists from various domains such as biology, ecology, economy and so on, and to interact with many stakeholders with different competences. Thus, simulating a complex system is naturally a collaborative task. To facilitate interactions between researchers, some works provide tools, such as PAMS~\cite{PAMS:2009}, GPGCloud \cite{GPGCloud:2009}, simExplorer\footnote{http://www.simexplorer.org/}, enabling a remote control of simulators in a collaborative manner. The PAMS portal allows users to launch collaborative simulations, \emph{i.e.} simulations that can be followed and controlled remotely by several stakeholders from a web site.

In the sequel, we focus on agent-based simulations, \emph{i.e.} simulations in which each entity, called agent, can have its own behavior. This paradigm allows heterogeneity at the level of entities and of the environment and thus allows users to visualize more precisely simulated systems.

In this kind of simulations, the use of participatory simulations (simulations in which one or several agents are controlled by human beings) goes one step further, for example to support decision-making: they allow users to test various scenarios from inside by controlling agents and visualizing immediately the consequences of their decisions.

Participatory simulations are even more useful when decisions can have a large-scale effect, which is the case when we consider phenomena that can spread over countries as for example the avian flu... It is thus interesting to plug together people from all areas impacted by such issue in a participative simulator to coordinate decision influencing the whole area. As these people are geographically far from each other, such a simulator should be used remotely and benefit from collaborative tools.

%% Faire ici la distinction entre collaborative et participative
Many of other works have developed frameworks for collaborative and/or participatory simulations. Some frameworks support remote collaborative tools for simulation but do not support participatory simulations, \emph{e.g.} BSCW \cite{Korichi:2008} or PAMS \cite{PAMS:2008} whereas some particular participatory simulators \cite{Minh:2008,GUYOT:2006,GUYOT_AAMAS:2006,Becu:2006,Sempe:2010} neglect the collaboration: either only one user takes part to the simulation, or various users gather to participate to the simulation at the same place. Another drawback of most of the participative simulators is that they are \emph{ad hoc} simulators, \emph{i.e.} developed for only one application and their reuse to another domain necessitates a quite new complete development.

The aim of our work is to develop a portal integrating genericity, collaboration and participation. We intend to extend the PAMS portal that provides collaborative tools and offering the possibility to deploy various simulation models, by new participatory simulation features. We want to create a user-friendly framework allowing: (i) modelers to create participatory experiments, (ii) and domain experts to play participatory games from a simple web graphical user interface. The intended framework should facilitate the building up of participatory experiments because modelers can concentrate themselves on identifying participants, determining the role of each of them, and obviously, establishing the scenario of the participatory game.

Thanks to the intended framework, there are no needs to develop, \emph{e.g.}, (i) several GUI which differ according to participants and their roles, or (ii) network routines that permit remote controlling of simulators. These tasks are time consuming and need serious competence in several domain of computer sciences. The portal will thus provide what is needed for the GUI and the network aspects will allow user to take part to the participative simulation remotely on their own web browser.
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% In particular, the graphical multiple interface can be configured for each user. To each user is associated a specific role to which corresponds some rights on the views and controls of the simulation.
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Modelers will thus have to implement their model on a simulation platform supported by the PAMS platform (GAMA, NetLogo or Repast) \cite{PAMS:2008,PAMS:2009} or write his own simulator (with respect to some specifications of the portal) and define in a specific XML files with the different roles that can play users and their view and control on the simulation.

	
%To integrate the participatory simulation on these platforms, it is necessary to have a modular and flexible design for joining two modules: the core of simulators and the interface in using a connector module to define various roles for a special model.

The paper is organized as follows. Section \ref{sec:roles} presents the roles of stakeholders on related works for participatory simulations and collaborative activities. In Section \ref{sec:design} we present the design of our generic multiple interface for collaborative framework that supports participatory simulation. Finally, in Section \ref{sec:application} we presents an application case on the GAMAVI \cite{Amouroux:2010} model to validate our implementation.



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%A collaborative platform for agent-based simulation on the complex systems research should support participative functionalities by providing the agent-based model management, the collaborative tools and the participatory interface as a virtual laboratory for the purposes: (i) access to specialized expertises, (ii) separated interaction between researchers, and (iii) optimization of research results \cite{PAMS:2008}. Every collaborative simulation process will invite a group of researchers for working on a participatory simulator to study, explore and assess the complex human systems on \cite{Minh:2008,GUYOT:2006,GUYOT_AAMAS:2006,Becu:2006} or ecosystems \cite{PAMS:2009}. For example, the WEB-SIM-MIOR \footnote{http://www.ird.fr/websimmior/} offers scientific community with some fundamental functionalities of a laboratory for simulation: the available models of simulators, the results of simulation and the comments. For the purpose of creating a platform for more ambitious, this web-based forum will provide in-depth cooperation between researchers by different disciplines such as ecology and computer science. All of these tasks can be handled via Internet with the stakeholders who come from distributed geographical areas.
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%In such a project, the organization or the real structure of interdisciplinary thematicians is very important to test and validate various scenarios. Participatory simulation appears to become a mature tool for supporting decision-making in particularly by allowing the visualization of the effect of decisions. Participatory simulation is ever more useful as a decision has a large-scale effect. For example, construction of a dam or a factory on the Mekong River in China can have big effects for many countries along the river. It could thus be interesting to plug together decision-makers from China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in a participative simulator to coordinate decision that influence to the river. As these people are geographically far from each other, such a simulator should use remotely.
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%% Faire ici la distinction entre collaborative et participative
%Many of other works try to develop the frameworks for collaborative simulation. However, these frameworks support collaborative tools but not remember to a distributed area for collaborative simulation \cite{Korichi:2008}, and other supports participatory simulation but not remember to a collaborative process \cite{GAMA:2007}, beside other is developed for a particular domain \cite{Minh:2008}. Among of them, this research focus on the frameworks that combine the agent-based simulator management with a distributed system, BSCW \cite{Korichi:2008} and PAMS \cite{PAMS:2008} for example, that can import new models of some simulators. Moreover, the stakeholders of an experimentation can participate through their interface via Internet. To integrate the participatory simulation on these platforms, it is necessary to have a modular and flexible design for joining two modules: the core of simulators and the interface in using a connector module to define various roles for a special model.
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%The main purpose focus on the development of an interface for such a participatory simulation on a web-based collaborative portal. This project will be based on the PAMS portal that allows user to launch remote collaborative simulations. It will extend the existing portal in order to ease the development of participative simulation tools. This research hopes that modelers and thematicians can concentrate on the task of modeling the real system without waste time with tasks such as developing the graphical user interface or the network aspects of the remote participative simulation tool, tasks that are time-consuming and needs specific technical skills. The portal will thus provide what need for the GUI and the network aspects will allow user to take part to the participative simulation remotely on their own web browser. In particular, the graphical multiple interface can be configured for each user. To each user is associated a specific role to which corresponds some rights on the views and controls of the simulation. The thematicians will thus have to implement his model on a simulation platform supported by the PAMS platform (GAMA, NetLogo or Repast \cite{PAMS:2008}) or write his own simulator (respect to some specifications of the portal) and define in a specific XML files with the different role that can play as users and their view and control on the simulation.
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%This paper, firstly, will present the roles of stakeholders on related works for participatory simulations and collaborative activities. Secondly, we design a generic multiple interface for collaborative framework that supports participatory simulation. Finally, an application in the PAMS platform and a case study on GAMAVI model will demonstrate our design.

